The Apple Watch and wearables revolution: a boon or danger to your business? ~ lotfi

With the imminent arrival of the Apple Watch and several manufacturers outing their devices based on rival Google's Android Wear, you would think that it wouldn't be too much longer before we are all sporting a smart device on our wrists.

But GlobalWebIndex's Q4 Device report found that as yet only one in ten internet users aged 16-64 own a smartwatch, with 7% owning a smart wristband. However, those who say they have responsibility for purchasing IT products for their companies (17% of internet users) post much higher figures – one fifth have a smartwatch and 16% a smart wristband, suggesting these wearables enthusiasts may act as advocates within their businesses.

Recent research by ABI Research has found that over the next five years, 13 million wearable devices embedded with wireless connectivity will be integrated into wellness plans offered by businesses.

The figures suggest a beachhead is to be found inside the business. But along with tablets, smartphones and the explosion of Bring Your Own Device, will the latest smartwatch trend be a help or a hindrance to businesses, and what role can IT expect to play in implementing and supporting a smartwatch strategy within the organisation?

Watching what goes on in business

Bringing things back to basics – what role could wearables play within the business?

"Wearables, particularly in the fitness space, can give companies an easy, compelling way to promote healthy behaviours, get employees more active, and to potentially reduce the cost of care for employees," says Gareth Jones, EMEA vice president at Fitbit.

Clare Flynn Levy, founder and CEO of Essentia Analytics, says that wearables, among other data sources, could help professional investors understand how they can optimise their investment decision-making.

"We're particularly interested in how sleep and stress levels impact trading behaviour," she says. "We can take as much or as little information as a person or company is willing to provide, and with this data show the wearer if he or she makes better investment decisions after exercise or after a good night's sleep."

"If you knew you'd make 20% more money by going to bed an hour earlier each night, you probably would. Wearable technology has the potential to unlock this user-specific information and help us to work more efficiently and maximise our return on energy expended," she adds.

Levy predicts that in the near future we'll see wearables used more and more in everyday life, and this will impact the workplace, whether employers are ready for it or not. "The shrewd move is to be flexible: embrace the change and let employees bring in the technology they think will help them work better and smarter."

Wearables

Problems ahead

But John Culkin, director of Information Management at Crown Records Management, sees problems with health tracking and the data it collects.

"What if that data fell into the wrong hands? Information about how your heartbeat changes in reaction to an event could be sensitive. Perhaps, too, a politician or celebrity's health information would be of interest to those wishing to publish it, or even to a blackmailer," he says.

He says that all these devices – and the data they produce – would have to be controlled, deleted and even destroyed effectively to make it completely safe within the work environment.

Culkin says wearable technology could allow organisations to track staff and ensure they are where they should be – perhaps through beacon technology or through checking which Wi-Fi router they are connected to. "This has significant implications for data security and for personal freedoms too," he notes.

Putting a strategy in place

With that in mind, what can the IT organisation do to help deliver a practical wearables strategy in the workplace?

Alessandro Porro, vice president of International at Ipswitch, says IT needs to dust off their network usage, security and BYOD policies and review infrastructure to get ready for the arrival of wearables.

"Whether the majority of devices expected in the business are personally owned or corporately owned, tweaks to policy and infrastructure are a must," he says.

He adds that IT infrastructure is already overloaded more than ever before, and if the right policies, technologies and monitoring tools are not put in place, businesses face poor network performance, low availability and the threat of security and compliance issues.

"A large number of wearable devices joining a corporate network are likely to cause a drain on wireless bandwidth which can slow application performance. If you have a scenario where a large number of new wearables join a network, each device will want its own slice of the corporate Wi-Fi network. This situation will need to be closely monitored and managed," says Porro.

Raimund Genes, CTO of IT security company Trend Micro, says that any new device that enters the business environment presents a security risk, and it is inevitable that wearables will connect to corporate data, just like other smart devices.

"It is crucial that organisations think about the measures they can take to minimise the threat from wearables, before they become as omnipresent as smartphones," he observes.

He says organisations need to be receptive to wearables in the workplace, as saying no often drives employees from Shadow IT to Rogue IT. "What is required is a policy that outlines how various devices can be used. For example, how to connect to the PC and other corporate devices, what network (if any) they can connect to, whether they can view corporate data, and so forth," he adds.

What next for wearables?

The coming years and certainly over the next eighteen months will mark the cornerstone for new guidelines and regulations for wearable tech in the workplace, according to Catalin Cosoi, Chief Security Strategist at Bitdefender.

"Undoubtedly, wearables will continue to leak into the corporate world at an even faster pace and companies will have to find new ways of regulating them as they go along," he says.

But Nigel Beighton, vice president of Technology at Rackspace says that we are still just at the beginning as far as wearables are concerned.

"We are at the start of the journey, and although more and more devices will hit the market, we will need to see improvements in battery and sensor technology before we can grasp the real benefits of wearables. It will be the second or third generations that will show us this, so tangible change will happen in about five years. Now is the time to play and learn, not to mass adopt," he says.